Micha Wertheim: Someone Else

The bigger the audiences for Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim’s shows became, the less he had to do to make them laugh. In one early show, he suggested that the audience would be better off without him. So in 2016, he acted upon this suggestion with an experiment that made theater history: he wasn't physically present onstage but somewhere else. The audience wasn't aware of this in advance, though they did get a hint in the form of a pre-recorded "live" radio interview from a remote studio. "I see my audience as my children," Wertheim says in this interview. "You have to educate them, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 15 years. At first you have to constantly be there watching them, but there comes a time when you have to trust them to get on with it without you." With some help from a robot, a printer, a stereo and a set of headphones, the members of his audience were able to make their own performance.

The Oudejaarsconference (New Year's Eve performance) of the year 2023 by the Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim.

Micha Wertheim asks himself and his audience how to live and survive in a gloomy future perspective. Populism seems to have been taken for granted by both right-wing and left-wing parties. Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism seem to be increasing. The planet is dying. The factory farming industry is still booming. We have reached a dead end and we are standing with our noses against a blank wall. All we can do now is turn around to see how we got here, with our backs against the wall.

Television registration of the latest theatre program by the Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim. A performance about what fantasy is capable of.

Registration of the fourth installment in the quadriptych by the Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim.